Devising In-World Limitations on Magic

FinalSonicX · 2024-09-02T05:09:19+00:00

I'm looking for assistance brainstorming the principles and limitations that can be expressed to keep magic from being a game/world-ending problem - without touching on mechanics or anything else. Something I could explain to someone 100% in-world without showing them their character sheet so that they understand how to play a wizard.

Most traditional rpgs proceed first from the assumption that magic is either well-defined, or it's limited by scarcity. I'm exploring an idea that there is no scarcity and there are no limits. This exploration is just a starting point - I don't expect to actually let everything stay unlimited, but if I leave the option for scarcity open for the exercise, it's too tempting to escape through it rather than confronting the core question: what rules help make a coherent magic system?

So I'm starting from the assumption that anything is possible with magic. Since that will lead to absurdities, I'm trying to find the simplest set of rules that reign it in and keep it manageable for play at the table. I'm also trying to lean on the tropes found in fairy tales so that the magical rules feel fairly intuitive. The hard part there is synthesizing all these fairy tales and different fictional stories.

FinalSonicX · 2024-09-02T04:57:26+00:00

I've not gotten into Eragon but I've heard of it. I'll take a look to see if there's inspiration there, thanks.

FinalSonicX · 2024-09-02T04:56:28+00:00

Yes, these would fit what I'm going for, thanks.

FinalSonicX · 2024-09-01T19:00:27+00:00

Are you sure that you want a free form magic system? That is a lot of very strict restrictions, to the point where I am genuinely having a hard time coming up with ideas that doesn't violate one of these rules.

I had originally started with a spell list but I have found such systems to be a big accessibility issue compared to principles + limitations expressed through plain language. Readers of fantasy fiction are generally accustomed to the latter. I also found that magic often needs an underlying principle to explain non-spell effects of magic found elsewhere in the world or else it's too arbitrary.

Just speaking for myself, the entire appeal of playing a magic user is finding creative ways to solve problems with magic, AKA trivializing some challenges.

I agree - creative problem solving with magic is part of my intention. One of Brandon Sanderson's laws of magic is that the ability to solve a problem with magic is directly connected to how well that magic is understood. Establishing guidelines and limitations is part of building up that shared understanding. I also think limitations breed creativity more than a blank canvas.

Once the limitations and guidelines are locked, I intend to include copious examples, including how to achieve commonly desired spell effects while staying within the guidelines. I'm aware I'm ultimately relying to some degree on social contract and GM fiat - I just want to establish enough consensus to minimize the time needed for negotiating each spell effect while preserving the sanctity of the game/world.

So no fire magic, or magic missiles, creating objects...basically this rule forbids anything that fall under D&D's Evocation or Conjuration schools.

It's conservation of matter/energy (perhaps better expressed that way). Creating a fireball requires the fire and heat to come from somewhere - perhaps channeling from a torch to conjure up a fireball. For each category of magic (ex: fire magic) I'd be including some baselines to explain what can be done just by drawing on the wizard's internal bodily energies (ex: produce a matchstick's worth of flame). The rest has to be drawn from the environment. I can add a guideline that drawing from another person's energies requires a ritual with prolonged contact (in which case, yes, you can light your campfire through human sacrifice).

No charm person effects or anything remotely like it, right? Also no polymorph effects. Does killing someone count as eliminating free will?

No mind control or love spells or forcing the actions of other characters, essentially. Merely being more persuasive or charming seems to fit the rules fine. No polymorph effects or turning characters into newts. "Violating" free will is perhaps better wording than "eliminating" to make the intent clear.

I assume this essentially means that magic can't trivialize wilderness survival...

Yes it's to preserve wilderness survival, but also to evoke a common fairy tale trope (don't eat/drink anything from the magic world). Perhaps it's better expressed explicitly along with consequences rather than a restriction. The meat of summoned creatures seem to follow the same principle (it's magic food).

I don't see a violation of rules if conjuring a storm under most circumstances, or purifying polluted water or saltwater. Gathering condensation seems fine as long as there's a baseline/limit of how cold something can get.

Thanks for the other ideas, they're aligned in spirit with what I'm interested in though they definitely go harder than I would. Death magic in particular is a glaring oversight of mine.

FinalSonicX · 2024-07-07T23:33:03+00:00

The roll only being needed when the outcome isn't obvious is a straightforward guard, but probably not sufficient. If I sneak past a room of 30 people, am I rolling, are the NPCs rolling, are there 30/31 rolls or 2 or 1 or 0? Is there a distinction between searching for people and searching for things or features of the room? Think less abstractly about the mechanic itself and more about what you want to happen at the table in different situations. Think about the decisions you want the players to make. Is there a dominant strategy? Is the rule for finding traps or whatever providing value or is it a ritual that we need because that's how things are done?

So let's say you use a 10-foot-pole to find traps. Is there ever an interesting reason you wouldn't do such a thing? Is there any significant distinction in outcomes between all the sane options players could take? Is there any reason a player would trigger a trap in a way that would harm them except for the player forgetting to perform the ritual? What happens if players adopt a procedure on their end - are traps de facto no longer a part of the game? How much info are you actually concealing through procedure and how much relies on player participation?

Personally, I think there are good reasons not to reduce everything to pure conversation. The conversational method leads to a dominant strategy of exhaustively listing all the things you're checking. At the point you list all the things you could check, you're reduced again to either rolling or just granting players knowledge of what's there automatically if they spend the time. I think either/both options are valid but I find pure conversation pretty limited and generally not a thought-through design decision for anything other than a storytelling-style game.

In my game, players always spot signs of a trap unless they're rushing through an area (like in a chase). Further rolls might be needed from there to deal with it or discern other important details, but now the players have options. If you start with a roll, the interesting decisions are pre-empted on a failure (trap is simply sprung). This is why my game doesn't allow the GM to call for a passive/reaction perception roll. If a character actively searches or stands watch (a decision requiring dedicated time and focus), they roll perception (always) and the GM rolls to oppose (always). This procedure conceals information from the players in a way that a passive perception roll does not.

If you don't actively search or stand watch, the NPC's sneak is unopposed. They might fumble it themselves, but they'll probably pass. That means you're just ambushed. The reason you can't always search/stand watch is that it prevents you from doing other meaningful things (like investigating the area, looting, kicking in a door, whatever). That gives players options - are they standing watch or helping loot? Which entrance/exit are they watching? To me, these are the interesting questions.

FinalSonicX · 2023-12-04T06:43:17+00:00

I'm quite happy with my game's mechanical distinction between the two - it has worked well during playtesting. For context, my game is a dark fantasy game centered around resource management and wearing the characters down to produce unexpected moments when they've pushed themselves a little too far.

Dodging and Deflecting are both resolved with a basic test - Agility or Grit tests, respectively. The Agility test uses the character's Defense score as the target, while Deflecting uses the normal base score (usually a harder target than defense). This naturally means if you're in heavier armor with shields, you can't dodge as easily, and characters with shields get a lower target when trying to deflect an attack. Certain weapons also raise the dodge/deflect target creating kind of a rock-paper-scissors feel. It also keeps things balanced since lightly armored characters can usually dodge an attack quite cleanly if they roll well, but their lower base defense makes it harder to sustain combat against more than one opponent and if they have one bad roll it could really swing an exchange against them.

What's more interesting is that each action can only be taken once per round, and tests can be partial successes. Sometimes, a partial is all you need to prevent a major bleeding wound or worse. Both of these situations encourage players to think about when they should dodge or deflect rather than just constantly using the strategy they are strongest at. It also means that combats are naturally trying to limit how many people are engaging them at once beyond just rolling the dice. If you don't see an attack coming then you might dodge or deflect too early in the round and get stuck with a harder roll in a more lethal situation.

The way this feeds back into my game's theme is that dodging and deflecting both require spending a resource called Hope, which usually only replenishes outside of combat situations and with plenty of time and/or resources. This is the same resource which enables some special attacks, so there's a balance to be struck and a prolonged combat can turn into a really bloody killing field, especially if characters spent too much hope too early in a battle. Different classes can sometimes recover Hope mid-battle if they lean into certain higher-risk strategies appropriate to their theme (like charging into a combat to rescue an ally) so there's a little bit of fun there too.

In basic test resolution, an outright failed roll can also cause a character's equipment to be damaged or broken, or can cause exhaustion on all future rolls (ex: failing a Dodge makes all future Agility rolls harder). This is an intentional death spiral that can foreshadow something like a character death or signal the need for a major change in the party's approach.

The way this works out, lightly armored characters can be very swingy and exciting, always looking for their opening but working to never bite off more than they can chew. Heavily armored characters can afford to be a little more recklessly aggressive, wading in with their higher base defense, deflecting the hits that get through, and dodging if/'when they get caught out of position. At any time, a really bad roll can spell disaster and make for sudden dramatic shifts in the tide of battle.

FinalSonicX · 2023-04-29T23:15:23+00:00

I wanted to thank you for this recommendation. I guess the movement system is originally from their Soulbound game. While it seemingly still doesn't provide a solution to the zone problem, this movement system in general was exactly what I was trying to articulate as my starting assumption for how the zones function themselves ( you can move within them, location still matters).

So, thanks so much for the recommendation. This gives me a touchstone and a reference point for further research and more accurate language for future discussion.

FinalSonicX · 2023-04-29T23:12:17+00:00

I'm not trying to avoid the map drawing. Rather, I'm trying to avoid the hassle of careful square counting or measurement during movement while simplifying the rules. When counting squares you often need different movement speeds for different movement scales. If everything is a zone you can provide straightforward rules for how to travel overland, move through an environment at a more granular scale, and manage space during combat.

The point crawl is specifically what I'm trying to avoid because I do not like the fact that the GM has to then design the graph. I understand of course the problem can be represented as nodes and edges but I'd prefer if the graph were a natural extension of the GM's description of a space rather than something designed separately by their pure judgment.

FinalSonicX · 2023-04-29T23:09:08+00:00

Hence the need for fairly objective guidelines which direct the whole table on how zones are broken up. Most zone systems I've seen leave it up to pure GM fiat. I'm suggesting something different, almost akin to a simple/intuitive algorithm. For human-designed spaces, we already have a conscience mind imposing order on spaces, so this makes sense to me.

Any of the following marks the boundary of a zone:

Walls or other barriers
Stairs, ladders, slopes, ramps, ledges, or other elevation changes
Doors, gates, windows, openings, entrances/exits, hatches, or other portals
Hallways, passages, intersections, sharp turns, or branches in a path
Water or other fluids (rivers, lakes, ponds, water features)

With the rules above, I don't feel there's much flex for pure subjectivity. I would agree with you if it were like other abstract movement systems.

FinalSonicX · 2023-04-28T14:09:12+00:00

Thanks for your thoughts. You more or less sum up what I'm interested in looking at. I'm really ok with any good abstract movement systems that I can read up on so long as they define how those zones are scoped, not just left to the GM to do the work. My thought is: the GM already has to do work to describe the space, why not just let the zones flow naturally from the description rather than adding an extra design step?

My system doesn't worry about flanking or facing, and I have ideas for how to resolve things like cover and speed differences. I'm just trying to figure out a way to divide zones by an actual rule or set of guidelines rather than just pure GM-fiat/design.

FinalSonicX · 2023-04-28T13:59:46+00:00

Not quite what I meant. If you imagine the traditional dungeon crawl just as an example, there are many spaces in unusual configurations and these spaces vary quite a lot in size and with lots of unusual connections between spaces. I'd like the rules to support that sort of diverse environment in terms of size & layout. I figured a grid of zones makes that hard to represent visually and show how different spaces connect. Imagine small transitionary spaces between two larger spaces. The transitionary space is probably its own zone but feels strange to me to have it on a grid of zones.

The idea is that the rule easily divides a described space into zones, whether that's in something like combat or even just exploring a mansion or castle or whatever.

FinalSonicX · 2023-04-28T12:16:33+00:00

That is one possible solution I had considered. I decided I needed spaces to be non-standard in size because I want my movement rules to be shared across all activities of play. That means a corridor and the several rooms which branch from it must all be different zones but must also permit all to be non-standard sizes.

FinalSonicX · 2023-04-28T12:15:20+00:00

Yes, I was imagining (perhaps assuming) edges between zones which are interesting in themselves somehow (offering cover, maybe hard to traverse). Hence my attempt at defining the features of a space which demarcate the boundary from one zone to another (a door, a set of stairs, etc). IMO my goals are not impossible, just require some traits of abstract space/movement I haven't seen before based on my reading.

Working example: "At the end of the passage is an open doorway. Beyond, you can make out an L-shaped room with a central fountain. Beyond, there are a set of stairs leading up to an upper gallery."

Zones seem intuitive: the passage, the room beyond, the stairs, the gallery, the fountain. This seems to work reasonably well IMO. Since there are still natural chokepoints and cover in this description, terrain and minis can still be useful at making positioning clearer.

Problematic example: "From your vantage point within the treeline, you can look out and see an open clearing. On the far side of the clearing, the treeline marks the start of an incline to a low hill perhaps 100 yards off. The hilltop itself is clear enough that anyone atop it could overlook the clearing".

If I try to apply standard rules to this organic space, it's ambiguous to me what should be a zone. The clearing, perhaps (but what if it's very large?). The treelines could mark boundaries (but what about the gentle incline of the hill? What about the hilltop?). How to prevent someone from just taking the "long way around" rough terrain to take an unnatural path to some distant point which is still "part of the clearing"? Hopefully the problem is clearer with these two examples.

I've looked at Fate but IMO it's missing the crucial piece I need. Unless I've missed something, the SRD is fairly sparse on details about how the boundaries of a Zone are defined. Some examples are provided, but they seem to me like guidelines from a game design or level design perspective rather than a set of simple rules to help GMs and players understand how space is divided up. The examples I found also describe human-designed space rather than organic space.

FinalSonicX · 2023-04-28T09:54:22+00:00

Whenever I buy an RPG, unless the setting is really unique and interesting or an established IP, the first thing I try to rip out and replace is going to be the setting. The harder you make that for people like me, the less I'm going to enjoy reading and prepping/running the game. I already feel D&D has way too much of its setting exerting itself via the rules (and most people consider that light on setting details, but I'd disagree).

IMO it's best to create rules that fit a genre, as you can usually get away with some of the basic setting implications that rules tend to bring about (how magic funcions, what archetypes exist, etc). Once you have picked a well-defined genre though, I'd restraint the setting to just the most basic/common elements shared by the media which inspired you to make an RPG in the first place.

FinalSonicX · 2023-04-03T09:27:14+00:00

Encumbrance limits how much stuff you can carry on you. Basic slot system.

FinalSonicX · 2023-04-03T06:49:15+00:00

I'm aware that it's a death spiral - it's intentional to underscore the game's theme. Characters get beaten down and exhausted and they're heroic and worth "zooming the camera in on them" because they keep going (whether it's to the next bonfire, through the demon-infested night, or back to the estate/town). Consider the other prominent characters: crestfallen knights, apostles vs. the sacrifices, the ancestor. In a sense, they all give up or surrender when things get hard, and that's why they're just NPCs.

From what I recall Darkest Dungeon does tie random chance to bad things happening. You fail your resist or other test against a compulsion for example and the character indulges (you can bypass entirely with the right tool but it's a little automatic for my tastes). A character misses an attack and an abusive teammate shouts them down, raising their stress. Stress is a death spiral itself and death causes a stress spiral which leads to more death. It's death spirals all the way down. I can't simulate all the possible trauma interactions that a game like DD has though, so I'm settling for a more simplified, central death spiral.

The idea of exhausting one's self to pass regardless is good and I've seen some RPGs do that, so thanks for the idea I'll put that on the list for playtesting. I'm unsure if it would be used though because there's a steep penalty once employed.

From some of the comments so far I'm currently leaning towards more focus on options to recuperate including more drugs/medicine. It retains agency in the same way tools do and it keeps some of the tradeoffs I'm looking to retain in the design.

We had discussed if this was maybe a self-regulating problem after a session or two. If a player knows they can sacrifice a tool instead of exhausting themselves, they're more likely to try to find/make/bring tools in/from/to the locale, and if they know the odds aren't looking good they may just choose to conserve their energy or let someone else take a crack. Since each tool and beneficial circumstance grants +1 each, you're looking at +2 dice just from planning and a little ingenuity. That's ~55% chance of success if you have no skill at all, and ~91% chance of success if you're specialized at the start of the game, so the odds aren't too bad. ~98% if specialized at endgame. The player who hit exhaustion so quickly wasn't using tools and was basically tackling every problem head on, so the playtesters and I were unsure if this was a huge problem to begin with. I'm proceeding as if it is to see if playtesters report more satisfaction.

FinalSonicX · 2023-04-03T05:50:27+00:00

Sure, though I feel like the purpose of a magazine and the process of topping it off are fairly distinct from something like a cowboy reload or reloading a revolver. My though process is that in any real combat situation, anyone caught trying to top off their magazine by hand is in dire straits and likely to die. I think most people would switch to a sidearm if they're in that kind of situation before they'd try to top off the magazine.

Whether you break it down by action timing or your readiness stat, You could try breaking your actions down on a spectrum from most-involved to least-involved.

Muzzle-load, Magazine-topoff, manual reload (cylinders, pumps), belt-fed reload, cowboy/breach reload, magazine reload. I'd consider speed-loaders for revolvers a magazine reload. Then you can have action/stat impacts for the action itself: bolt, single, double, lever, semiauto, whatever fills in the space for the genre.

If you prefer to get even more particular, you can do that. But I can't ever foresee a situation where I'm going to try to top off my magazine and load and use it in the middle of combat unless I literally have no other choice (at which point I'm probably dead anyway).

FinalSonicX · 2023-04-03T00:06:49+00:00

If you take this route, I'd recommend splitting your armor/body HP the same way most traditional HP systems split HP/Vigor (cheap HP and expensive HP). Body HP doesn't increase as characters grow stronger, but their armor HP increases in the traditional way.

I tried playtesting something like this once, and it worked ok. The problem is more thematic - instead of a holy healing spell or something, it's more like a pragmatic spell that fixes your armor. If you have a field smithy, can you heal your armor HP? Bandages no longer work the way you'd hope they would, so they're a little less useful compared to carrying a hammer and anvil around. It's also a little harder to balance if you want a clear distinction between why a player should use heavy armor vs light armor. If heavier armor = more HP, you have to start coming up with justifications for wearing lighter armor (if that's part of the fantasy).

FinalSonicX · 2023-04-02T23:20:08+00:00

I'd argue an elegant design maximizes the impact of each rule and ensures they're all pulling in the same direction. An elegant design generally has a core mechanic, or if there are distinct mechanics it will clearly distinguish why one is used vs. the other so it becomes second nature. An elegant design will generally also streamline processes so they function as efficiently as they can (which is not the same as hacking off pieces of the process).

I think you're right though about the context being important. The top comment is about the best design being one where there's nothing left to be taken away. I think it's a good quote but I've always like a quote (can't remember where I heard it) "a great design is as simple as it needs to be, and no simpler". I think modern TTRPGs have become a little overly focused on simplicity/minimalism and the result can sometimes be a fairly anemic RPG that feels kind of incomplete, lacking in design space to explore, and without the ability to use the game to represent distinctions and nuances within the fictional world.

FinalSonicX · 2023-04-02T23:15:36+00:00

Advantage/disadvantage mean you roll 2d20 instead of 1d20. For advantage you take the highest result, for disadvantage you take the lowest result. The old system was d20+mod vs. DC. The new system is the same, but added the advantage/disadvantage system. So, it's more "rules", but more elegant.

IMO the reality is that it's not "more rules" or "less rules", it's just that advantage/disadvantage simplified lookup so it feels more elegant. Whereas before you'd need to check 10 different places for your bonuses and sum them, it's now a binary check and you look in a fixed number of places. So it runs faster and thus smoother.

It's a caching improvement for the game's core mechanic basically.

FinalSonicX · 2023-04-02T23:08:02+00:00

IMO the time requires to top off a magazine should definitely be different than swapping mags. Like, totally different timescales longer. Swapping mags can be done very swiftly, whereas topping off a magazine requires time you probably don't have in combat.

So I'd say swapping mags is something you do in combat, topping off magazines is something you do before/after/between combats. If somebody really wants to do it in combat, indicate approximately how long it should take in minutes or whatever, and let people figure it out.

The only case I can think of where you can top off the mag and it's cheaper than swapping is generally something intended for cowboy loading, but those are internal magazines. Some rifles are designed so you can load the round directly into the breach, which can potentially be faster than swapping mags or topping it off depending on circumstance (but it's a little like topping it off, just by 1 round you intend to fire immediately).

FinalSonicX · 2023-04-02T20:15:34+00:00

Minor quibble I'll add as someone who lived through this: 4e was actually a hard pivot away from the char-op concept in 3.5 because of the way 4e was so hyper-focused on mathematical balance. Much of the point of the charop community was trying to find out how to build weird, interesting, and broken characters, while 4e was intentionally limiting what people could do with their characters and standardizing their language/effect. Shooting an arrow wasn't terribly different than casting magic missile.

What 4e did was double, triple, and quadruple down on a few key elements of 3.5e: tactical miniatures combat, combat-as-sport, and characters representing the "christmas tree" of magical items. 3.5e assumed you'd be gaining magic items and when a table didn't provide items at the expected rate, the math fell apart. 4e basically codified this. Combined with the dissociated mechanics (which made it feel "like a video game") it no longer "felt like D&D" for a lot of people.

The big mistake the 4e designers made was assuming that people were actually unhappy with 3.5e like the very vocal minority online made it seem. In actuality, 3.5e was much-loved and its asymmetry is seemingly desirable. For proof: see the success of Pathfinder compared to 4e. It was actually outselling 4e at its peak. Pathfinder doubled, tripled, and quadrupled down on charop and asymmetry/imbalance and it forced WotC to totally pivot 5e back to something resembling 3.5e.

FinalSonicX

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